The quickest way for me to get directly to San Francisco's third largest park, McLaren, is to take BART to the Balboa Park station then catch the #29 across the street on Geneva. The bus goes right through the park on divided Mansell with green highviews from both sides (first pic). The park's eastern boundary is the Portola 'hood where a bus stop is at the top of University. When the bus reaches the west end, it swoops downhill on Persia through the Excelsior neighborhood.

Not the best view to the south this time of McLaren's big sister, San Bruno Mountain: hazy out there. Second pic: the small parking place off Mansell across the street from the tennis courts.

One of the bus stops is at Mansell and John F. Shelley (third pic), where I exited for trails both south and north of Mansell. Looking down at both southeast stairways (up from Visitacion Valley) today. Fourth pic is the top of the longer stairway at Visitacion Ave. (195 steps up from the dead-end of Campbell). At the top of the shorter trail (down to Ervine: fifth pic) are benches, picnic tables and the observation tower.

The blue water tower is in another part of this big park (sixth pic) as are the two lakes. Lots of good trails to wander off on (next two pics), including some paved and some with short stairways (last pic).